AAS at a crossroads

Yale University's decision last month to upgrade its African-American studies program to a department will not put pressure on Princeton to take similar action, according to Provost Jeremiah Ostriker.

But Nell Painter, chair of Princeton's AAS program, said she continues to favor the creation of such a department, and noted that she is "exasperated" and "exhausted" as a result of her efforts to convince the University to make the switch.

Ostriker said he had formed a committee consisting of several professors — including Toni Morrison and Painter — to recruit specialists in African-American studies prior to Yale's decision.

'Build it up'

"We looked at this a while ago," he said of the prospect of upgrading Princeton's AAS program. "[Former provost] Ruth Simmons was here at the time and it was decided that we should strengthen the program, to build it up before we could consider making it into a department."

"Harvard's faculty is first-rate," he added, "but if you have one lonely person, that doesn't make it a department."

"To turn our program into a department right now would be counterproductive," Ostriker said. "It would have, by far, the smallest faculty — it would put it at a disadvantage."

Painter, a proponent of turning the program into a department, disagrees.

"I've been saying all along that our program needs to be a department. I'm not saying this for ego-gratification," she said. "In order to fulfill this intellectual mandate that exists at Princeton, there needs to be a department so we can hire faculty, do graduate work."

Painter said she was as frustrated as Hazel Carby — the chair of Yale's AAS program who temporarily resigned her post when Yale president Richard Levin said he was jealous of Harvard's African-American studies department at a dinner Feb. 4. Like Painter, Carby had been arguing that her program should become a department.

"Luckily, Shapiro isn't mooning over Harvard, or I might have done what Carby did," said Painter, who will no longer chair the program after her sabbatical next year.

"We've done everything. We are governed by an interdepartmental committee," she said. "I've sent memos, we've done the things that need to be done. Undergraduates and graduate students have spoken to administration about our proposals."

Associate Provost Joann Mitchell — who is involved with the faculty recruitment committee — said she understands Painter's frustration but believes the University is doing its best to strengthen the AAS program.

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"In the fall of '98, we looked at the progress of the AAS program and we decided it was less than what we expected from a place like this," Mitchell said. "The University has made a major effort to recruit faculty this year but it's hard to know that magic formula to recruit potential candidates."

Sociology professor and committee member Howard Taylor said he believes the AAS program has suffered following the loss of former University professors Cornel West, who now teaches at Harvard, and Arnold Rampersad, who recently left for Stanford.

"Everyone had their idiosyncratic reasons for leaving — they were pull factors, rather than push factors," he said. "But that doesn't let the University off the hook. They could have done more to keep them."

Taylor said he believes the committee will make progress in recruiting minority faculty. "We formed the committee three months ago, and we put about nine years of work in three months," he said.

Though he declined to comment on the committee's progress thus far, Ostriker promised that students and faculty "will see results."